Despite these shocks, the presidential election went
off fairly smoothly in early August, and Zedillo apparently
won by a solid margin. However, in late September
another prominent figure was assassinated. This
time the victim was one of the highest officials of the
ruling party, José Francisco Ruíz Massieu (NYT,
September 29, 1994, A1). While the Mexican stock
market dropped sharply at first, the foreign exchange
markets reacted only slightly. The third episode of
pressure on reserves began in mid-November, when
Deputy Attorney General Mario Ruíz Massieu, a brother
of the slain Francisco Ruíz Massieu, made sensational
accusations and resigned. He claimed that
important figures in the ruling party had ordered his
brother’s assassination and that his superior, the attorney
general, as well as other prominent party officials
were obstructing his investigation of the murder